Interesting. What I'm noticing in both this discussion and the discussions around MV is that a lot of us think that the solution has value, but the features are not prioritized well. I don't have much experience with Trello, but I know of lots of other tools (Bugzilla is one, I believe) that can support discussions from the community per feature/bug and have a "voting" feature.
I don't support RfC's on full systems. If we get to this point we've all been doing it wrong for far too long to have an easy fix. But I think that RfC-like discussions on every individual feature make a lot of sense. And I think that one of the biggest steps the WMF can take is to base prioritization of features on such "RfC"'s in a well-defined and well-understood way. IMO, user studies are important, but they'd be better used to '''convince''' the community that something is useful from a perspective that may be very different from a very experienced user's, rather than force features down our throats.
I know that this is already happening to some degree. But is the WMF '''obligated''' to prioritize features based on community feedback?
As a separate question, would we find it easier to do this onwiki, and are there extensions that we can build with the WMF to facilitate such discussions and feature management? Or we cool with the tools we already have?
,Wil
On Fri, Sep 5, 2014 at 10:58 AM, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:
I think there have been some pretty strong indications over the years that the current talk page system needs to be improved. However, there's been little discussion at all about whether Flow is that improvement. I have been following the development for quite a while, and it really looks like the system was developed backwards: essential functions for effective discussion that already exist and are used on a daily basis were not included in the initial designs, while the design incorporated plenty of bells and whistles that were considered desirable (although the reasons for desirability weren't necessarily universally held or particularly clear). This has resulted in a huge amount of re-engineering to incorporate (some of the) needed functions , and a lot of downplaying of the feedback given because the feedback has conflicted with the "bells and whistles" of the original design. There is also the fact that it would add another completely different user interface to the editing process, which increases barriers for existing users but even more so for new users.
In other words, the issues with Flow are so deeply rooted in its core design and philosophy that it may not be possible to come up with a product that is actually useful on the projects we have to replace the discussion system we have. It seems that the Flow team has assembled the ingredients to make a chocolate cake with the hope that it will be a suitable replacement for vegetable stew.
Risker/Anne